Appropriate Steps to Deal with Adverse Customer Comments on Social Media Platforms

With the advent of social media, businesses have started to promote themselves on these social platforms. These social media platforms are great for directly communicating with the customers. But there is a risk factor involved with this direct interaction as the customers often vent their complaints and frustrations about the brand or the company on social media and everything is in full public view. Such a situation is actually unavoidable. So, the most appropriate way to handle negative comments on social media is to reply quickly and effectively to the customers instead of ignoring them. These positive responses on the part of the company, in reality, boost customer allegiance and confidence in the company.

There are certain basic rules to deal with negative comments on the social media platforms and those are as follows:

Reply Fast:
Try to respond fast and effectively to customer complaints on social platforms.The customers generally look for acknowledgment of their concerns and a timeframe within which there will be an appropriate response to the issues that they have raised. This quick response is a perfect tool to manage customer expectations and to bring down negative social media comments. But, it is of utmost importance to sustain the same frequency of response on social media even on the weekends.

Recognize Your Faults:Nobody is perfect and so there is no shame in owning up to your mistake. If the company has committed any mistake, it is important to take complete responsibility also. This stops the customer from blaming the company again and again. But never put forward an apology which looks mechanical and fake. Apologize in a normal and genuine tone to the customers.

Go for One on One Conversations:Any interaction on the social media is under the public gaze and at times, others join in the conversation. This aggravates the entire situation. So, it is better to take the entire conversation offline and deal with the customer complaint one on one basis. This keeps the problem under control.

Go for Personalized Responses:Never provide an automated reply to the customer who is putting forward a complaint. If you are replying with an automated message that itself means that the organization is not going into the depth of the client‘s problem. Send personalized messages in response to a client’s complaint. For example, maintain a conversational tone, include the client’s name in the message, and admit the difficult situation of the clients and so on. These things win over the client even if they are annoyed.

Never Take Negative Customer Comments Personally:Never take the negative comments of the customer personally because the business owners must remember that a customer is annoyed about his/her situation and not with the business or the brand. So, keep a positive tone while responding to the customers and do not use hostile words.

Put Forward an Escalation Policy:An escalation policy is a very important document. At the time of tackling any sort of complaint this particular document assist the company employees to locate the contact person who is authorized to deal with the complaints. This helps in contacting the appropriate person directly without any delay. It expedites the response time on the social media platforms against any complaint.

Always Follow-Up:After providing the customer with a response, there is no need to think that the issue has been resolved. Within a span of few days just follow up the customer and find out if all their requirements have been taken care off or not. This customized and personalized approach helps the customer understand that the company indeed value them as a client.

Never Obliterate Negative Comments:It is better not to delete the undesirable social media comments. If these are deleted, the clients will post more negative comments to provide a window to their frustrations. But, if a particular client is being discourteous towards the company or is being rude towards the other fans on the company’s social platform then providing a warning to them or blocking them is completely legitimate.

Try to Track Conversations about Your Company:In order to avert negative comments and to keep problems and issues under control, it is crucial to monitor what people are discussing regarding your company on the social media channels. It is a challenge to track such conversations but it is an important step towards managing undesirable social media comments.

Of course, satisfying each and every customer is not possible but a company can certainly take the necessary steps to deal with negative social media comments by the customers.

Author: Ranjan Paul

Ranjan Paul who is the Team leader of Digital Marketing Department at Sketch Web Solutions, a mobile & web development company based in India has immense experience in this field. He has been responsible for creating the internet presence of many unknown business entities and has also propelled many known names to the first page of the most well-known search engines.
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